Dense, black smoke rose over the city after a series of explosions that shattered windows and ignited fires. Lviv and the rest of western Ukraine have seen only sporadic raids during almost two months of war and have become a relative refuge for people from areas of the country where fighting has been most intense. Ukrainian Prime Minister Dennis Smikhal, meanwhile, has vowed to “fight to the end” in the strategically important Mariupol area, where the last known pocket of resistance to a seven-week siege was located in an extensive steel plant full of tunnels. Russia has repeatedly urged forces there to lay down their arms, but those who remained ignored an ultimatum or surrendered on Sunday. Lviv Mayor Andriy Santovi said seven people were killed and 12 wounded in rocket attacks overnight. Lviv Governor Maksym Kozytskyy said the Russian strikes hit three military installations and a tire shop. He said one child was among the injured and emergency teams were battling the blaze.

“The nightmare of war has caught us”

A hotel hosting Ukrainians fleeing fighting further east was among the buildings severely damaged in the attack, the mayor said. “The nightmare of our war even reached Lviv,” said Lyudmila Turcak, 47, who left the eastern city of Kharkiv with two children. “There is no place in Ukraine where we can feel safe.” People are taking refuge after an air raid siren sounded in Lviv on Monday, following previous air raids in the area. (Joe Raedle / Getty Images) Smoke appears on the horizon after Russian rockets hit an area in Lviv on Monday. (Joe Raedle / Getty Images)
Military analysts say Russia is stepping up its strikes on arms factories, railways and other infrastructure targets across Ukraine to deplete the country’s ability to withstand a major ground offensive in Donbass, the Russian-speaking eastern industrial heart of Ukraine. The Russian military says missiles hit more than 20 military targets across Ukraine overnight – including ammunition depots, command headquarters and groups of troops and vehicles. Meanwhile, he said the artillery hit another 315 Ukrainian targets and warplanes carried out 108 strikes on Ukrainian troops and military equipment. The claims could not be independently verified.

Russia is bending to occupy Donbas

General Richard Danat, a former British army commander, told Sky News that the strikes were part of a “softening” campaign by Russia ahead of a planned ground offensive in Donbas. The Ukrainian government halted the evacuation of civilians for a second day on Monday, saying Russian forces were bombing and blocking humanitarian corridors. Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said Ukraine was negotiating transit through cities and towns in eastern and southeastern Ukraine, including Mariupol and other Donbas districts. The Luhansk region government in Donbas said four civilians trying to escape were shot dead by Russian forces. Russia wants to occupy Donbass, where Moscow-backed separatists are already controlling some territory after its attempt to seize the capital, Kyiv, failed. A woman makes the sign of the cross as she participates in an Orthodox service that celebrates Palm Sunday at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, on Sunday. (Petros Giannakouris / The Associated Press)
“We are doing everything to ensure the defense” of Eastern Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his overnight address to the nation on Sunday. The looming attack in the east, if successful, would give Russian President Vladimir Putin a victory he needed to sell to the Russian people amid growing war losses and economic hardship caused by Western sanctions. The occupation of Mariupol is considered a key step in preparing for any eastern attack, as it would liberate Russian troops. The fall of the city to the Sea of ​​Azov would give Russia its biggest military victory in the war, giving it full control of a land corridor to the Crimean peninsula, which it occupied from Ukraine in 2014, and depriving Ukraine of a major port. and award-winning industrial assets.

Mariupol is a “shield defending Ukraine”

Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar described Mariupol as a “shield defending Ukraine”. The city has been reduced to rubble during the siege, but several thousand fighters, according to Russian estimates, were holding the 11-square-kilometer Azovstal steel plant. People pass by the turret of a damaged tank in the southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine, on Sunday. (Alexander Ermochenko / Reuters)
“We will fight to the end for victory in this war,” Smikhal, Ukraine’s prime minister, promised on Sunday on ABC’s This Week. He said Ukraine was ready to end the war through diplomacy, if possible, “but we have no intention of giving up.” Many Mariupol residents, including children, are also sheltered at the Azovstal factory, Mikhail Versinin, the city’s patrol chief, told Mariupol TV. There seemed to be little hope of a military rescue. Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba told CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday that the remaining Ukrainian troops and civilians there were basically surrounded. Relentless bombings and street battles in Mariupol have killed at least 21,000 people, according to Ukrainian estimates. A maternity hospital was hit by a deadly Russian airstrike in the first weeks of the war and about 300 people were killed by a bombing of a theater where civilians had taken refuge. CLOCKS The war has reached the “critical third phase”, says the former US Secretary of Defense:

Russia-Ukraine war has reached a “critical third phase”: the former US Secretary of Defense

Rosemary Barton Live talks with former US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta about Russia’s changing strategy in invading Ukraine and why this next phase of the war on the east side is a critical moment. 8:11

“Torture wards” in southern Ukraine: Zelensky

Following the humiliating sinking of the Russian Black Sea Fleet flagship last week in what the Ukrainians boasted was a rocket attack, the Kremlin had pledged to intensify its attacks on the capital. Ukraine says it has hit the Russian warship Moskva with two Neptune missiles. Russia said only that it sank while being towed after a fire. Russia says its crew has been evacuated, but their fate remains unclear. Footage released by the Russian military on Sunday showed the commander of the Russian Navy inspecting rows of seafarers identified by ship at the port of Sevastopol in Moscow, Crimea. It was not clear how many sailors were on the team. Ira Slepchenko, 54, stands next to coffins, one of them with the body of her husband, Sasha Nedolezhko, 43, during the exhumation of a mass grave in Mykulychi, Ukraine, on Sunday. (Emilio Morenatti / The Associated Press)
Airstrikes hit the capital Kiev and the eastern city of Kharkiv, where bombings on Monday killed at least three people and injured three others, according to local AP reporters. One of the dead was a woman who appeared to be going out to collect water in the rain. She was found covered in blood with a container of water and an umbrella next to her. At least five people were killed in Russian bombings in Kharkov, Ukraine’s second largest city, on Sunday, regional officials said. Zelensky described the bombing in Kharkov as “nothing more than deliberate terrorism.” Firefighters are working to extinguish the fire in an apartment building after the Russian attack in Kharkov, Ukraine, on Sunday. (Andrew Marienko / The Associated Press)
Zelensky also called for a stronger response to the brutality of Russian troops in parts of southern Ukraine, he said. “Torture wards are being built there,” he said. “They kidnap representatives of local governments and anyone deemed visible in local communities.” He again urged the world to send more weapons and impose tougher sanctions on Moscow.